wilderness

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”

(Isaiah 43:19, ESV)

“Wilderness,” as we all know, can mean different things to different people. Heck, it can even mean different things to the same person, at different times in their life. Wilderness is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

Sometimes wilderness might look like unexpected suffering, or soul-wrenching depression, or uncontrollable chaos. Or mental illness. Or cancer. Or a global pandemic. Sometimes wilderness might be found in the midst of profound grief, or deep weariness, or ongoing uncertainty. Or too many responsibilities. Or too few resources. Or not enough young families.

Sometimes wilderness might be individual; sometimes, communal. At times, it might be blessedly short-lived; at other times, seemingly and agonizingly unending.

Wilderness means different things to different people.

As people of faith, we are not exempt from experiences of wilderness in our lives, whether as individuals or as the Body of Christ. We are promised, however, that we will not go through them alone. We are promised that God will be with us.

And not only that–if we are to take Isaiah at his word, we are promised that God “will make a way in the wilderness,” that God will lead us through it, that God will open a path where it had seemed to us there was no path. We are promised that God will be with us in and through and out of the wilderness, to the other side, where “rivers in the desert” await, where there will be healing and wholeness, abundance and life.

We can’t know for sure what that path will look like, or how long it will be, or how many twists and turns and hairpin curves and hills and valleys we will pass through along the way. Nor can we know with certainty when we will step out of the wilderness and find ourselves at the edge of the river, dipping our toes in the water and inhaling deeply and recognizing that we have moved into a place of healing and abundance.

But we can be sure that we will. We can be sure that we will!

Thanks be to God for the promise of new things, new paths, new life…that come after seasons of wilderness.

Peace be with us all.

Deb

Our Lost Sense of Intimacy and Participation In Our Wild Places

guest post by Tom Martinez

When it comes to bucket lists, I can check off being chased by a Grizzly. Of course had I not run, it probably wouldn’t have chased me. It would have been like the other Grizzly encounters I had while rafting through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (or ANWR), with them watching me or me watching them, more or less calmly, across the species divide. Though few people realize it, the protected status of the Refuge is endangered by the President’s new budget, a provision of which—if unchallenged—will open up the Refuge to drilling. Hence the religious consortium rising up in defense of ANWR, which is likely to become the next “Standing Rock.”

My encounter with the Grizzly happened roughly midway into a three hundred mile river-rafting trip my first wife and I took through the Refuge. During our preparation we thought a lot about bears. But once we were there we realized they had been a lightning rod for a complicated mix of feelings about the Wild. That’s not to say we lost all fear, but as the exaggerated nature of our fears became evident, our fear deepened into reverence.

We chose ANWR because it is one of the last really wild places in North America and because the Porcupine River offers one of the longest stretches of water-born travel (our trip covered 300 miles) without major rapids. The refuge itself spans over 19 million acres of wilderness and enfolds one of the most biologically productive ecosystems in the world. Despite its rich biodiversity and long-protected status, the current tax bill threatens to open the area up to drilling. To do so would be turn back the clock on what has been, since 1960, its legally protected status.

In addition to being home to Grizzlies, Polar Bears, Arctic Foxes and 200 bird species, the Refuge is also home to the Gwich’in people, an Indigenous tribe that had already been living off the land for thousands of years by the time Columbus “discovered” America. To this day their diet consists mostly of Caribou.

During our first few days rafting through the Refuge we were puzzled by the complete absence of wildlife. Then as we sat on a boulder eating lunch, a fox sauntered by practically close enough to touch. As he passed he looked over his shoulder as if I were the curiosity.

We took to traveling down the river by night, which never grew completely dark. The sun lowered in the sky and then rose again, plunging us into a kaleidoscope of beauty and wonder. One night we heard the sound of wolves howling. We howled back and to our surprise they appeared along the riverbank and ran alongside us.

Because so little of the Wild remains we have lost this sense of intimacy and participation, opting instead for metaphors of domination. In the process, awe and wonder have been replaced with greed and extractive exploitation. That’s why the Refuge and its protected status is now threatened. Some in power see no reason not to drill there.

But Standing Rock signaled a new ecological awakening. Images of Native Americans on horseback facing off with police in riot gear gave symbolic expression to the sense that nature is in trouble. We are wondering if scientists are perhaps right and the sudden upsurge in “unprecedented” weather events and super storms are a function of our having upset the balance of nature. If so, we’ve managed to accomplish that in roughly two hundred years. Meanwhile the Gwitch’in stand for a way of life that’s been sustained for many thousands. Perhaps they have something to teach us.

Many religious voices are attempting to call attention to the ethical or moral nature of this historical moment. The growing sense of urgency felt among the human family is being interpreted as a call to deepen our understanding of our true place in relation to God’s creation—a shift from dominion and even the notion of stewardship, to one of kinship. As we begin to shift at the paradigmatic level, the Earth transforms from an object to be exploited, to something more akin to way the Gwitch’in view the Caribou calving ground, “the sacred place where life begins.”

A disruption of the herd’s massive migration would be similar to what we did to the Plains Indians, who moved in such dramatic harmony with the buffalo. Only this time we have a chance to do something different. Preserving this bio-region and honoring its people would mean preserving a way of life that has moved to the deeper rhythms of the Wild for close to ten thousand years. The choice is clear: we can keep it as protected for centuries to come, or we can throw it away for an estimated three years’ worth of oil.

In the wake of my encounter with the Grizzly I’ve often wondered whether we will ever come to see that the Wild we so fear is ultimately a projection of the danger we ourselves pose. But it’s hard to see that from inside our cars and cubicles. We’ve got to get out into the Wild, which is why its preservation is so important.

When that Grizzly got close enough to make out what I was, she went from a full sprint to a complete stop. I was poised and ready to shoot. We beheld each other for a few brief but unforgettable moments, precious time that allowed me, eventually, to see her as she was. Then, she turned and disappeared into one of the last vestiges of the wild, a place I pray we preserve for generations to come.

Read about a diverse alliance of faith institutions and leaders bringing voice and action on behalf of caring for God’s Creation.

Photo by Elizabeth Meyers on Unsplash

The Three Great Pathways that Jesus Chose but Many Christians Have Missed

by Kenneth McIntosh

I came across this pair of pie charts on Facebook last week and immediately noticed that those who are “religiously unaffiliated” claim as much of the pie as any other group. At 23% they are virtually tied with Evangelical Christians (24%), just ahead of Catholics (21%) and decidedly ahead of Mainstream Christians (15%).

Despite this trend, I still hear respect for Jesus—in popular culture, on social media, and in private dialogue. It would seem that much of the world agrees with that famous saying of Mahatma Gandhi, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike Christ.”

As people who identify by that word “Christian” it behooves us to ask: Where do the two part ways? Why do so many people like Christ but not those who bear his name?

The passage of Scripture that begins this season of Lent—the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke—may be one good place to answer those questions. When tested, Jesus chose three great paths to freedom—ways of living that characterized his life. When similarly tested, many of his followers have failed to choose the same pathways; and I have to confess that I also have at times failed to choose these directions of freedom.

When we hear the word “temptation” most of us think of various vices; the temptation to have an affair, or to become an addict to alcohol or—less severely—the temptation to eat donuts for lunch. This Gospel story corrects that notion. Vices, per se, are not the greatest evil. The real temptation in life is to forget who we are. The devil keeps challenging Jesus, “If you are God’s child.” And he keeps challenging on this point just before Jesus is about to set about his great life work.

You and I need to keep our eyes on the prize, to remember what the real goal of life is and what real failure is. Failure is not downing shots of vodka, watching dirty pictures or emptying a box of Twinkies (although we may be prone to all three of those things if we believe that we have already failed). Failure is forgetting that we are God’s children and failure is forgetting that we have an incredible mission to love and restore all of God’s creation. To forget our identity in God, and to forget our glorious mission in the world—that is what it means to give in to temptation.

The first temptation is for Jesus to turn stones into bread (which is rather compelling after fasting for weeks on end). It is the allure of materialism, the belief that our happiness comes from things. Of course, physical things are not bad in themselves; we are indeed material beings inhabiting a material world. Food, clothing, shelter—these things are good. For that matter jewelry, perfume, a membership at the gym, or a prize collection of baseball cards can all be good as well. The problem is when we forget the relative importance of things versus love; when we forget that the things we own say little about our Divine identity and purpose.

We in the wealthy developed nations fall most easily into this pitfall because we have managed to attain so much. It’s been calculated that if everyone on earth used up the same amount of raw materials, fuels and so-on that the average American consumes, it would take four worlds to sustain the earth’s population.

When Jesus retorted to the tempter, “Humans shall not live by bread alone,” he affirmed the pathway of Simplicity –of being content with fewer things, and with things that matter more. That’s a great recipe for a life that depends on a vital connection with God, and that enables all of God’s other creatures to live in peace alongside of us.

The next temptation is that of coercion. The devil says, “I’ll give you power—let me show you how.” This is upping the temptation scale; the first temptation is rather lame, materialism appeals to humans at the level of the reptilian brain stem, the animal nature. Coercion is a better temptation for brighter people, because bright people know the world is askew and wish to change it—and if we can knock the world into shape then everyone will be happier. That’s how the devil presents the case.

Beginning with the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, Christians have chosen the way of coercion. Today, half of the candidates for the US presidency in 2016 embrace that same path of coercion. We will make America a Christian nation…we will make people follow Christian principles. The way of coercion—this is what Gandhi had in mind when he said “I like your Christ…but your Christians are so unlike him.”

Jesus, in contrast, chooses the path of Service. God knows that people transform not because they are forced to do so, but because they see examples of sacrifice. Ultimately, the way of Jesus is the way of the cross—the way of costly love. This is why Mother Teresa is so well loved, and Franklin Graham…less so.

The devil’s final assault is the temptation of privilege. Can’t you just hear the devil saying, “Hey, Jesus, why don’t you throw yourself off the top of this tall building? Ordinary folk, they’d fall and end badly. But you’re special. Angels will catch you—won’t that be cool? Won’t people just be so impressed with you?”

You don’t have to spend long in the corridors of Christian influence before you can spot the temptation to privilege and fame. It may not be stated so bluntly, but I’ve sure caught the tone of Christian messages that say, “I’m really exceptionally cool and successful—and you can be too if you come to my church.”

But Jesus responds by choosing the way of Humility. We are called to the spirit of Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7, ESV). No one in history has had a more perfect God-consciousness than Jesus, yet he chose to live as a very ordinary Middle Eastern peasant, subject to all the hardships of common humanity. And today, despite the increase of those who are spiritually unaffiliated in North America, some 2 billion citizens of earth still own the name Christian, having been influenced by the suffering servant.

As we begin the season of lent, perhaps we should not think so much of what we can “give up,” as much as we should think about the life-ways that Jesus chose. Take a moment, and cement in your mind the three choices that Jesus made in the wilderness: Simplicity, Service and Humility. Ask yourself: what can I do to walk on these paths during this Lenten journey?